


apocalypse currently

by ceruleancats



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Comedy, Crack, F/F, Humor, I Just Think We Need Some Jokes With What's Coming, M/M, No beta we die like archival assistants, Post-Apocalypse, did i get this out before season 5? kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23438806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleancats/pseuds/ceruleancats
Summary: Jon and Martin are on a mission to get back to London and threaten Jonah incessantly until he tells them how to reverse the apocalypse. They run into some friends along the way.
Relationships: (also background), (background), (tbh all the relationships are kind of background to this story), Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 22
Kudos: 118





	apocalypse currently

**Author's Note:**

> So. That trailer, right? (And for my fellow patrons, that episode, right???) Like I said in the tags, just wanted to finish up my version of season 5 (aka the version where TMA is a comedy) before it actually aired, which I only sort of succeeded in. Ah well. Enjoy the jökes, and leave a comment or kudos if you feel so inclined!

Jon startled awake at exactly 2:47:54am, which he knew courtesy of his Eye-mandated, atomically accurate internal clock. He pried his eyes, sticky with sleep, fully open and glanced nervously about the small, dark clearing he and Martin had set up camp in for the night (though if he was being honest, camp might have been a generous word for what was essentially their single shared sleeping bag huddled lonesomely under a tree). There was nothing obvious to explain what had awoken him. The clearing was silent and still, and not dark enough to be Dark, since the glow of the Sky Eye, as Martin had taken to calling it (though Jon kept mishearing it as critically acclaimed American family/comedy superhero movie Sky High (2005), which he only knew about through the Eye's useless tidbits and definitely not because he'd watched it 17 times this year), filtered faintly through the branches above him.

Then, he opened his Eyes. Fuck. 

Worms. Worms underneath all the goddamn bushes, lurking just out of sight in the undergrowth surrounding the clearing. As if they hadn’t had enough of fucking worms after that whole business with Prentiss. 

“Martin,” Jon hissed urgently but quietly, so the worms didn’t notice he had woken up. “Worms.”

Martin woke the instant the word “worms” left Jon’s lips and snapped his gaze urgently to meet Jon’s, like that was his sleeper agent activation phrase or something. “Oh, goddamn it, again?” he whispered furiously. “Like we haven’t had enough of fucking worms after that whole business with Prentiss.”

“Right? Anyway, do you think if I Stare at them long enough, they’ll get intimidated and go away?”

Martin pursed his lips in thought for a moment. “I mean...I feel like it’s worth a shot? Just, you know, try not to get jumped if they don’t surrender. That would be really inconvenient for me, because, like, I really cannot bear traveling with someone who’s infested with worms.” 

“Understandable,” Jon said gravely, and turned his Eyes on the worms rather aggressively. Unfortunately, the worms were not cowed. In fact, they seemed quite the opposite of intimidated, in that they immediately began squirming towards Jon and Martin at a truly alarming speed. “Not intimidated! Definitely not intimidated!” 

Jon and Martin scrambled out of the sleeping bag, grabbed it and their packs, and booked it out of the clearing. Jon led the way through the least-wormified bushes, both of them picking up their feet like they were running barefoot across extremely hot sand on the beach or perhaps a lava field. 

This was a surprisingly effective technique, they discovered, some time later, when they finally paused in another clearing to gasp for breath and check their legs over for worm holes and found none. 

“Thank...God…” panted Martin, hands on his knees. 

“Someone’s...clearly watching...over us,” Jon agreed, lungs burning and legs feeling like pieces of the overcooked spaghetti Tim had cooked for one of his more memorable April Fools Pranks. Jon realized the unintentional irony of this statement only when the Sky Eye winked at them. Or blinked at them. It was only one eye, so honestly it was kind of hard to tell.

“Did we at least run in the general direction of London?” Martin asked hopefully, after they’d both spent several minutes desperately sucking air into their lungs. 

Jon consulted the Eye briefly and was helpfully provided with the fact that the tree they were standing under was approximately 32.67583 years old. Ah, so this was one of _those_ days. Nights. Whatever. He shrugged at Martin helplessly, and Martin nodded grimly (Martin was well aware of the continued existence of _those_ days). 

“Naturally,” Martin sighed, looking up to meet the terrible gaze of the Sky Eye. “Would it kill you to be helpful one time? Just once?”

The Sky Eye said nothing, because it was an eye. Jon wanted to tell Martin he looked kind of stupid asking an eye questions when it clearly wasn’t going to respond, but in the interest of being a loving, supportive boyfriend, he generously refrained. Martin rolled his eyes and glanced back at Jon. “So, back to sleep? As long as the worms aren’t still chasing us, and there isn’t like, a giant Flesh monster hiding behind that tree?”

“Martin, don’t jinx it!” Jon hissed furiously, inspecting the tree in question carefully with all of his Eyes. No Flesh monster behind it that he could see or See, but really, Martin should know better than to say anything fate-tempting like that by now. “But yes, I think we should be safe for now, and it would be good to get some more sleep. Maybe in the morning the Eye will deign to toss me some scraps of information about where exactly we are.”

Martin nodded, and they both got cozy in the sleeping bag again. Martin drifted off almost instantly, but Jon still felt too wired from their flight from the worms to even consider the possibility of sleep. He thought wistfully of Elias’s Porsche that they had found in the Institute’s car park after escaping the Lonely and borrowed (with a little Eye-assisted hotwiring and a metal coat hanger Martin found conveniently on the ground) to drive to Daisy’s safehouse. It really was a shame they’d lost it almost immediately after the beginning of the end of the world to a nasty, rapidly-expanding patch of Buried quicksand that swallowed the entire road and then some. If they still had the car, they probably wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of a forest somewhere in Scotland, reliant on Jon’s often useless connection to the Eye for direction. Well, at least it was Elias’s—Jonah’s, he had to keep reminding himself—car. How was that for a fuck you? 

Jon entertained himself by imagining Jonah’s expression when he found out what had happened to his car until he was calm enough to surrender to sleep.

— 

Jon was rudely awakened a second time in one night (or day, whatever), this time by an eerie howling in the distance. Very effective as an alarm clock, but rather terrifying (so he gave it a generous 6/10). The Hunt, more likely than not. It was still late, or rather early, enough to be dark (5:47:13am), which, wonderful. Jon’s legs were still aching from their earlier nighttime sprint, and he was so, so not ready for another lively jaunt through the woods in the dark. He nudged Martin gently awake (that man could really sleep through anything, honestly), putting a finger to his lips as Martin’s eyes opened and met his questioningly. Jon pointed to his ear as the howling came again, this time noticeably louder, of course. Martin’s eyes went wide with fear for a second, before narrowing in the now quite common emotion Jon privately called Of Fucking Course This Is Happening, It’s Incredible How Every Time I Think We’ve Reached Rock Bottom, The Ground Turns Into Quicksand And We Keep Sinking (or FUCK for short, since the full name took kind of a long time to think out and this emotion was mostly felt during periods of urgency, such as right goddamn now). 

Martin jerked his head out towards the forest and raised his eyebrows, which Jon interpreted as “Run?” and Jon’s legs instantly indicated how much they despised and would in fact actively resist that option. Jon shook his head minutely and gestured for them to hunker down instead. With the speed at which the howling was approaching, they had almost no chance of outrunning the Hunter. It was honestly better to try to stay hidden, and failing that, fight. And besides, the chase was the whole point for the Hunt, so maybe standing their ground would mean the thing would lose interest. Because he and Martin had definitely been lucky like that so far. Not. 

He and Martin eased out of the sleeping bag, and Jon reached over to his pack and drew the hunting knife he’d found in one of Daisy’s weapon stashes all over the safehouse (this one was from under the refrigerator, a completely normal and logical place to keep weapons). Martin grabbed his own weapon, a spiked bat. There had been guns in Daisy’s safehouse, of course, but neither one of them knew how to use one, and the Eye was apparently staunchly anti-gun because when Jon had tried to Know how, it just cheerfully informed him of the latest mass shooting statistics. So, knives and spiky bats it was. 

The howling died out, but now Jon could hear the ominous rustle of branches and the crack of sticks snapping beneath slow, heavy footsteps and the deep, rhythmic rush of air that came from something very large breathing. Jon adjusted his grip on his knife carefully and tried not to let his protesting legs collapse beneath him like he was some kind of newborn fawn trying to stand for the first time (this was not the best comparison to make, Jon realized, as he considered the terrible predator moving inexorably toward them. What was that one fact about confronting predators bigger than you? Make yourself look large and threatening? Or was that just for mountain lions?). As Jon attempted to dredge up these long buried facts from the one time he’d read one of those wilderness survival guides as a child, the thing entered the clearing.

It was massive, the size of a large draft horse at least, covered in shaggy gray fur, with sharp white teeth dripping saliva and pale yellow eyes, far too many of them. And on its shoulder, a scar, or something, pinkish and in the shape of a — “Daisy!” Jon cried out before he could stop himself. 

The thing that used to be Daisy Tonner growled low and deep, flattened its ears. Jon stepped forward on instinct, ignoring Martin’s murmurs of surprise and concern from behind him. He put his knife down gently on the ground in front of him and rummaged in his pocket, pulling out a very smashed energy bar. Well, better than nothing. He split open the packaging and held it out towards Daisy hesitantly. Her ears perked back up, and she cocked her head almost like a curious puppy, if puppies were over two meters tall and had fangs as long as Jon’s hand. Jon tried to keep his outstretched arm from trembling as Daisy stepped forward and sniffed the bar delicately, her breath hot and damp against his hand. Then, in a sudden jerk, she snapped it from his grip and it vanished into her mouth. For about 1.5 seconds, before she promptly spit it out and did that thing cats do when you feed them medicine or something equally gross, with a fair amount of dramatic jaw-gnashing and tongue-scraping. 

The gentle, reassuring smile Jon had been carefully cultivating throughout this interaction froze on his face a bit. But Daisy didn’t attack or anything over the grievous insult of a shitty energy bar, just gave Jon a look that somehow clearly said Your Food Sucks, Bitch, and crouched down in the middle of the clearing. At this point, Jon finally looked back at Martin, who simply shrugged and said, “Daisy’s right, those energy bars are really bad.” 

Daisy nodded emphatically, which looked very strange on a wolf-thing. Wait. “Daisy, can you...understand us?” Jon said slowly.

Daisy looked at him again, this time conveying something like Uhhh, Clearly. Well, that was convenient, at least. And the way she was crouching down…

“Daisy, we’re trying to get to London to threaten Jonah Magnus into reversing the apocalypse. Are you offering to carry us?”

Daisy made what Jon assumed (hoped) was the wolf-thing equivalent of a smile and jerked her head up towards her back. He’d take that as a yes. 

— 

Riding on Daisy’s back was, predictably, not the most comfortable means of transportation (Jon thought longingly of the cushy leather interior of Jonah’s Porsche, so tragically lost in the line of duty). However, this was made up for and then some by the simple fact that it was so much fucking faster than traveling on foot, plus Daisy actually seemed to know where she was going. Also she was a giant wolf, so a significantly smaller number of Entities and/or Avatars attempted to fuck with them. So basically, it was a definite improvement, even though Jon was definitely going to have the wolf-thing equivalent of saddle sores for ages after this. Anyway. Jon was jolted out of his thoughts about the intricacies of saddle sores by Daisy growling and slowing her pace. Oh god, what was it now.

 _It_ turned out to be a shambling mass of Flesh creatures, which, wasn’t that fun? Daisy had been following the main road ever since they’d gotten out of the forest, and the Flesh monsters were directly in the middle of it, converging on some poor soul who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

“Daisy...I know you’re a real big wolf and everything, but these things seem really, er, fleshy, and I think we should probably just go around them,” Jon said gently, patting Daisy’s shoulder from his perch on her back. 

Martin made a protesting noise from behind him (probably he wanted to try to save the person, because he was Martin), but when he peeked over Jon’s shoulder and saw the full mass of the grotesquely twisted meaty things, he shook his head and voiced his reluctant agreement. 

But Daisy didn’t seem to hear them. She growled again, and stepped forward once more, crouching low to the ground in a hunting stance.

“Er, Daisy, we appreciate that you like to hunt things and all, very understandable, but I think maybe we should leave this one?” Martin said, rather nervously. 

Instead of making a rational decision like, say, turning around, or cutting sideways to give the Flesh things a wide berth, Daisy instead decided to shake Jon and Martin and both their packs off her back and onto the grass lining the sides of the road. 

“Ow! Jesus Christ, Daisy—” Jon said irritably, picking himself up, but she was off like a shot, already closing in on the Flesh creatures, all snarls and flashing teeth.

“What the…” said Martin from beside him, a sentiment that Jon very much echoed. “What is she doing?”

“Hell if I know!”

They both watched anxiously as Daisy leapt into the midst of the mass, baring her teeth and swiping at the creatures with sharp claws (and Jon would know, given the way Daisy had once politely threatened him with their razor points until he gave her the _good_ energy bars). The fleshy things reared back, likely valuing their limbs, which gave Daisy an opening to crouch down beside the person they’d been attacking and let them climb on. The person who, as Daisy fought her way back out of the circle of flesh, began looking strangely familiar. 

“Wait a minute,” Jon said softly, “is that who I think it is?” What were the chances they ran into two people* they knew out here in the middle of the Scottish countryside (*one person and one giant wolf-thing that used to be a person)?

“Oh my god,” breathed Martin, voice equally soft, “Basira? No wonder Daisy wouldn’t let us go around…”

Daisy bolted back over, the figure that was now undeniably Basira, battered and bruised but alive, bent over her back like a disheveled, apocalypse-style jockey. Before Jon could say anything friendly and intelligent like, “Wow, hello, glad you’re not dead,” Daisy practically scooped him and Martin and their packs back up and set off down the road, giving the bleeding, rather put-out looking Flesh creatures a wide berth. 

As soon as Jon finally regained the air that had been knocked out of his lungs when he was tossed bodily upon Daisy’s back and they had left the Flesh far behind, Daisy promptly dumped them back onto the ground. Jon and Martin collided in a jumble of limbs, cursing vibrantly, and Jon was immediately deeply jealous of Basira’s impossibly graceful slide down Daisy’s leg that ended in her landing lightly on her feet. 

“Hello, Basira,” Jon got out with some difficulty, from where his head was pressed directly into the dirt by Martin’s leg. 

“Jon, Martin,” she replied easily, nodding at them and politely ignoring their futile attempts to sort out whose limbs were whose. 

Daisy took advantage of this lull in conversation to shove her entire head affectionately (?) at Basira’s chest, hard enough that Basira had to stumble back a couple steps. “Heh, hey Daisy,” she said, a rare smile curling her lips, and wrapped her arms around Daisy’s head. “I know what I promised you, but...I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Also we definitely can’t afford to give up a gigantic fucking wolf from our team, so. Yeah.”

This felt like a rather private moment, so Jon and Martin averted their eyes and pretended to be very engrossed in inspecting the incredibly interesting blades of grass they were sitting on. 

“This is really cute,” Martin whispered, grinning soppily. Jon rolled his eyes but still leaned in and put an arm around him when Martin tilted his head to rest it on Jon’s shoulder. 

After about a minute of staring intently at the grass, Basira cleared her throat loudly. “You two can stop pretending to look away and get back over here now.”

Jon and Martin did so, and Jon had to choke back a sudden laugh, because Basira was absolutely coated in shedded fur, glued to her clothes with industrial strength wolf drool. “Not. A. Word,” Basira said threateningly, glaring at him.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Jon lied, smiling beatifically at her. 

“Mhmm,” Basira said, unconvinced, delicately removing a clump of fur from her cheek. Daisy growled softly and narrowed all her eyes at him, in clear support of her girlfriend (or whatever they were now that one of them was a wolf monster. Basira was a known furry though so, like, maybe they could still make it work.)

Jon realized that in the excitement of their Flesh escape and heartfelt reunion, he hadn’t even asked the most pertinent question, which was what the hell Basira was doing in the middle of the Scottish countryside.

“So what the hell are you doing in the middle of the Scottish countryside?”

Basira raised a fur-covered eyebrow at him. “Looking for you. Figured you would be the best chance we have at reversing this shitshow. Had a car originally, but lost it to the Buried pretty early on, so I’ve been on foot ever since.”

“Hey, same!” said Jon. “But yes, we’re actually on our way to London to threaten Jonah Magnus into undoing the apocalypse, so unfortunately kinda back the way you came.”

Basira sighed. “Naturally. At least I have an idea of the hotspots between here and London. That should let us make pretty good time. And I really cannot wait to threaten Jonah Magnus.” 

“Or if that fails, flay the skin from his body until he agrees to help us,” Martin piped up cheerfully.

Basira blinked at him. “Right. Can’t wait. Suppose we’d better get going before Something notices us.” She patted Daisy’s side, fur drifting gently from her arm with the movement like fresh snowfall, if fresh snowfall was disgusting and contained 97% more wolf-thing spit. 

Daisy crouched obligingly and let them climb back on. This time, Basira claimed shotgun (aka up by Daisy’s neck), and Jon was stuck in the middle seat (aka sandwiched between her and Martin). This was so reassuringly familiar to how normal car rides went for Jon that he was almost able to forget they were actually riding on a giant wolf that was in fact their friend/former walking police brutality lawsuit in the middle of the apocalypse. 

Jon leaned back into Martin and tried to trick his mind into hearing the rhythmic pounding of Daisy’s feet on the asphalt and her whooshing breaths as the thrum of a cab engine, like he was just on his way back from a rousing night at the pub with friends (or more accurately a lonely night of drinking vodka at 3:54am in the depths of the Archives — no one was perfect, okay?). 

—

London was...bad. Really fucking bad. Jon had known it would be, Known it would be, even, especially after passing some of the larger towns and villages in Scotland, but this… 

“Nightmare” didn’t even come close to describing it. Every couple steps was like playing Russian roulette, Terrible Eldritch Fear Entities Edition. Having a giant fucking wolf on their side was definitely a boon, but still. They were picking their way south, dodging west to avoid a street entirely infested with what Jon would’ve called zombies if he was completely cliche. Okay, yeah, they were zombies. 

They were halfway down the block when Martin straightened up suddenly behind him. “Hey, wait, isn’t that Georgie’s flat?”

“Yes, actually—wait, Martin, how do you know where Georgie lives?” Jon said, craning his head to pin Martin with a suspicious glare.

“Ohhhh, ha ha, you know, you must have told me at some point,” Martin said, extremely unconvincingly. 

“Wow, I thought you were a way better liar than that,” said Basira dryly.

“Martin,” Jon said warningly. 

“Okay _fine_ , she invited me over to complain about you. It was only once! I promise!”

“How did she even get in contact with—oh never mind, I’m not even going to question things at this point. But we should go check on her and Melanie, I think. You know, Georgie literally can’t feel fear. She got it all slurped out of her by an End avatar back in uni. That probably gave them at least a fighting chance at survival, right?”

More than a fighting chance, the four of them soon found. Well, three of them, as they determined after approximately two seconds that Daisy would be tragically unable to fit up the staircase to Georgie’s flat in her current form. After being roundly threatened at through the door by Georgie until she recognized Jon’s voice and let them in, they all gathered around Georgie’s dining table to compare notes. 

Melanie and Georgie were both perfectly fine. It seemed as if Georgie’s literal fearlessness and Melanie’s complete severing of her connection with the Eye had made them practically invisible to the Fears wreaking havoc on the rest of London. 

“So, what have you guys been...up to this whole time, then?” asked Martin, not unkindly. 

“Oh, so much podcasting,” Melanie said, uncharacteristically brightly.

“Podcasting,” echoed Basira, looking as if she desperately hoped she had misheard.

“Yeah, turns out it was surprisingly easy to pivot What the Ghost into a more of a practical survival guide slash daily Fear news broadcast,” Georgie chimed in. “We usually go out and try to pinpoint some of the worst hotspots each day so we can let people know to avoid them.”

“Didn’t the Internet go out weeks ago?” Jon asked dubiously. His phone had already been useless by the time it ran out of battery (though to be fair, that was more because he had maxed out his data plan scouring the web for and subsequently sending Martin good cow pics from the other room). “How exactly are people listening to your podcast?”

“Internet and phone lines have been down for ages, yeah. So we’re using this megaphone,” Melanie said, whipping the object in question out from _somewhere_ and holding it towards Jon demonstratively (well, slightly to the left of him, which was understandable given that she was having to locate him with hearing alone). 

“Right,” said Jon. “Very, er. Inventive.”

“Isn’t it?” said Georgie, smiling as she planted a kiss on Melanie’s cheek. “All Melanie’s idea, after she tripped over it in the middle of the living room. I think the Admiral might’ve dragged it out of the junk closet to use as a toy?”

Jon suddenly remembered that Georgie owned a cat, and mentally berated himself for the grave faux pas of getting to business without first ignoring the host for several minutes in favor of petting her cat. “Oh, how is he? The Admiral, I mean.”

“Oh, he’s great! He’s really gotten a taste for those Web spiders, you know. Anytime they try to sneak in here, he just gobbles them right up. Those gross worms too, he loves those things. Good thing, too, since we kind of ran out of cat food a couple weeks in.” 

Jon personally did not think that was the healthiest diet for a cat, but then again what did he know. Wrong thing to think, apparently, as he was now generously gifted a flood of mental images detailing the aftermath of the Admiral’s callous spider massacres, courtesy of the Eye. 

“Brilliant,” Jon said weakly. The cat in question chose this moment to saunter into the kitchen and hop up onto Jon’s lap with a pleased meow. Jon melted, to what was probably an embarrassing extent. “Aw, hi there! How’s my favorite kitty doing today?”

The Admiral mrrrp-ed in response and rubbed his cheek against Jon’s hand. Jon cracked a smile and looked up to see everyone else at the table (with the exception of Melanie, obviously) staring at him. Martin in particular had locked eyes with the cat, an expression of what seemed like extreme jealousy and possibly rage twisting his face. 

“Er. What was it we were talking about?” Jon said, valiantly ignoring the way the Admiral’s claws were digging directly into his femoral artery. This was going to go great.

—

The walk up the steps to Elias’s—Jonah’s—office was, in a word, extremely tense. Georgie and Melanie had insisted on tagging along despite the danger, because they wanted to be there when that greasy blond rat bastard got what was coming to him (Melanie’s words, not Jon’s). So it was that those two, Basira and Daisy (with considerable difficulty, as unfortunately few staircases were constructed to be accessible for giant wolves), and of course Jon and Martin, had made the treacherous trek from Georgie’s apartment to the Magnus Institute. 

Yes, Jonah almost certainly could see them approaching, but there wasn’t exactly any way to hide themselves from his gaze, what with, you know, the giant Sky Eye staring balefully down at them at all times. They were going for the direct approach, and somewhere beneath all the petrifying fear Jon was currently experiencing, he still had a spark of hope. Jonah was powerful, obviously, but they had three incredibly pissed women and a giant wolf-thing on their side, plus Martin with a spiky bat, which Jon felt like might actually be able to trump Jonah’s shitty Eye tricks. 

With this in mind, Team Reverse the Apocalypse reached the top of the stairs and crept down the hallway to the door at the end. Jon could tell Jonah was in there, could See blurrily through the door to where his figure was just sitting there ominously at the desk. This changed nothing. 

He turned back to nod at everyone, confirming Jonah’s presence, and they adjusted their grip on their weapons, closing ranks behind Jon supportively. He reached carefully for the doorknob, Daisy’s trusty hunting knife tight in his other hand, took a deep breath, and opened the door. 

“ _Stay where you are_ ,” Jon said, compulsion hissing off his tongue. Not that compulsion had ever worked on Jonah before, but it was worth a try. 

At the exact same time, Jonah said, “Oh my god, finally. You will not believe how long I was waiting for you to come find me.”

“ _Don’t try anyth_ — wait, what?” Jon attempted to process what was happening. “We’re here to threaten you into reversing the apocalypse,” he said, but instead of sounding suitably dramatic, it fell rather flat when Jonah just raised a single eyebrow at him in response.

“Yes, I’m aware. Like I said, I was waiting for you to find me. I want to help.”

“You want to...help. Reverse the apocalypse. The apocalypse that you manipulated me for years into starting. The apocalypse that was going to make you some kind of fear dictator. That apocalypse,” Jon said incredulously, waiting for someone with a camera to jump out of the shadows and tell him that his whole life had actually been a T.V. show, and thank you so much for participating in Pranked’s Eldritch Apocalypse spinoff. 

Jonah sighed obnoxiously, like Jon was the one acting completely batshit. “Yes, Jon. Unfortunately, as it happens, the apocalypse is not all I...hoped it would be. I have discovered that being the ‘king of a ruined world’ is somewhat less glamorous than I had dreamed. For instance, no one is scared of me anymore. It seems as if Eye powers lose their fear factor a bit when there are more, how shall I put this, actually horrifying things running around out there. Like feral people with long knives, and quicksand, and large quantities of fire. I’m not going to lie to you, this kind of sucks. Everyone I try to spy on is either terrified and running away, terrified and hiding, or dead. What’s the point of being an eldritch voyeur when there’s no good interpersonal drama? So, all that to say, yes, I will gladly help you reverse the apocalypse, so long as you apologize first for stealing my Porsche and also promise not to kill me afterwards.”

“Ohhhhhh my god,” Melanie burst out from behind Jon. “You stupid bitch, how the fuck did you not predict this would be the outcome. Literally anyone could have told you things would end up like this!”

“This seems uncalled for,” Jonah said, sounding somewhat wounded. 

“No, this is very called for,” said literally everyone else in the room. Daisy growled in agreement from where she was sticking her head through the door (the office was a bit overcrowded even without a giant wolf in it).

“Also,” said Martin suddenly, “are you kidding me? We rode all the way here from the middle of nowhere, Scotland for this? I’m going to have saddle sore scars for the rest of my life.”

“Well, if you don’t want to reverse it…” Jonah said slimily, because he was a bastard. 

“Of course we want to reverse it,” Jon snapped. “So what awful sacrifices do we have to make? Should I gouge out my eyes? Knife myself in the heart? Burn down the Institute with all of us inside?”

“Christ, Jon, nothing so extreme. Take a chill pill. The first step is to apologize for stealing my Porsche and subsequently burying it in quicksand. It’s really quite terrible for the engine and the leather interior.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Oh my go—fine. Martin and I are so deeply sorry for losing your rich asshole car to the Buried. Is that an acceptable apology?” Jon asked shortly.

“Hm, I suppose so,” Jonah said, tapping his chin in fake thought.

“So?” said Basira. “How do we reverse it, then?”

“Step two: swear not to kill me afterwards,” Jonah said, smiling at them winningly. “On the Eye, please, if you will.”

Everyone groaned. Jonah raised an eyebrow at them.

“We swear on the Eye we won’t kill you afterwards,” chorused the room, in various tones of disgust, hatred, and acute disappointment.

“Wonderful!” Jonah clapped his hands together. “To reverse the apocalypse, all you have to do, Jon, is repeat the following words: ‘I close the door.’”

Jon stared at him for several seconds in silence. “You’re kidding.”

Jonah actually looked offended. “I would never joke about something like this.”

Behind him, Martin and Melanie had begun to laugh/cry hysterically, Georgie put her head in her hands, and Basira shared a commiserating look with Daisy’s many eyes. 

“Well, then, I close the door,” Jon said, feeling almost lightheaded with hope. 

There was an overpowering sucking sound, like some kind of cosmic vacuum cleaner, and Jon could feel the Entities vanishing back into whatever hellish dimension they’d come from. Relief flooded through him, and he almost joined in on Melanie and Martin’s laugh-crying. A sudden thought occurred to him, though.

“Oh, Jonah? I think you may have forgotten a little something,” Jon said, a nasty smile crawling across his face. 

“Yes, Jon?” Jonah said coolly, folding his hands on top of the desk.

“Since Daisy is a giant wolf monster, and therefore doesn’t have a human voice box, she wasn’t able to swear not to kill you. Daisy?”

“OH SHI—”

**Author's Note:**

> The whole "I close the door" line has been floating around the fandom for a while, I think, but my main inspiration was from @albrii on tumblr (check out their incredible apocalypse-reversing art)!


End file.
